Food and Drinking Water Access Perceptions in Northeast Haiti: Impact of Household, Individual, and Other Socio-economic Characteristics

Abstract

Access to food and drinking water has been a significant challenge for the people of Haiti, a situation that worsened after a powerful 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck the country, pushing the majority of the population below the poverty line. To address these issues, this study introduced measures to identify individual and socio-economic factors that impact access to food and water among households in Northeast Haiti. The data used for this study is a random sample of 401 beneficiary members of a Community Based Organization in six communes in Northeast Haiti. The data was analyzed in SPSS using some descriptive and inferential analysis like mean, percentages, ANOVA, correlation and regression. The findings show that majority of the respondents were females (66.1%), in their average age of 47 years. Most of the respondents had no formal education (71.6%). There is predominance of agricultural activities, with 68.3% of households engaged in farming. Most households relied on public water sources (68.8%). Average FCS was found to be 38.71 and ANOVA result revealed that Sainte-Suzanne had the lowest mean score and showed a significant difference from other communes. Among other things, multiple regression analysis showed the surprising result that engagement in farming had a negative impact on FCS for households, and that households that owned their water sources had lower FCS. Ordinal regression analysis showed a positive relationship between household size, wealth status and water usage. However, livestock farming, using own water source and having more older people in a household all correlated with lower water usage. Overall, the finding provide valuable insights and highlight critical issues that will be useful for directing intervention efforts. Keywords: Food security, Water security, Food consumption score, Resilience, Socio-economic factors.